Customer Reviews

Civil and Environmental Systems Engineering

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is required for several courses in the civil engineering major at Ohio State University. I am a current student and had to "use" this book for one of my classes last quarter. The focus is on the economics of engineering projects, specifically waste water treatment plants/systems. The book explains nothing in very brief sections, yet asks homework questions about topics neither brought up nor explained in any depth/example. I feel as though no serious time or thought went into writing this book and I am extremely disappointed that this book was chosen to be used (possibly because one of the authors is a current and longtime faculty member???). Avoid if you can.

The subjects in this book are extremely broad and have a wide range of applications for systems engineering. So, I understand why the text was broad (they don't want to teach one method as if that's the only way of finding the answer), but that makes it so much more difficult to come up with AN answer. Luckily, most topics in this book aren't really all that complicated. But I remember some instances of staring at a table for 10 minutes trying to find out the pattern that was there while re-reading through the unnecessarily wordy text.

Not a fun book at all. I can't remember the name of the book at the moment, but I know that most of what I learned from systems engineering from another text with more detailed examples and an Excel-based approach for teaching solutions (even though that is not the ONLY answer).

This was the text book I used my senior year in college for an wastewater engineering class. The reading material does not explain the subject and the example problems included in the chapters are not useful. The questions at the end of the chapters are excellent test material but can not be solved by understanding the material within the chapter.

The text is an excellent introduction to the world of civil engineering from a systems perspective. The goal is to introduce the tools and methods of systems analysis for the civil or environmental engineer. Applications are provided to illustrate the concepts.

Very well done from start to finish.